[sdiy] Substitute for pin matrixes? Neat solution?

[John Mahoney]

At 05:56 PM 1/24/2010, Tom Farrand wrote:
>Forget the Hall.  Reed switches on the PCB and move a cylindrical
>magnet towards or away from the reed switch.  The matrix "pin" is a
>plastic housing that can be grabbed and pushed or pulled to
>engage/release the connection.  The magnet is housed inside the
>plastic pin "plunger".  The nice part is that the reed switch does
>everything passively ... electronics not needed.
>
>I posted a much longer message about this but it never showed up on the list.
>
>Peace.
>Tom Farrand

Aside from using actual pins (which I didn't specify), is this 
different than what I suggested in the first response to Karl's post?

I don't mean to be an ass, but the Department of Redundancy 
Department is reviewing it. ;-)

John